Why This Blog is So Necessary to Humanity

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Die-eting

Every year there comes a point when I remember that I am
about to find myself in a bathing suit in public. Whether this is a Roxy bikini
or a bedazzled posing suit for a show the pressure from this realization will
always result in a caloric deficit. In other words going on a diet.

Even as a staunch supporter of flexible dieting I would have
to admit that after a while, eating less than maintenance sucks…especially as
you get closer to your goal. Why? Because the smaller you get, the less you have
to eat or the more you have to move…or both. And that just sucks no matter how
many bagels you manage to squeeze into your carb allowance.

Every diet starts off the same way. Thanks to scantily clad
fitness models and super inspirational internet memes your motivation level is
at its peak and you are ready to do what it takes!

Armed with a fool-proof diet plan and dead broke from
restocking your fridge with ‘deficit friendly’ foods like low sugar jelly and
low fat ice cream you are convinced that this diet will be THE DIET. The diet
that takes you all the way. How hard can it be? I can still pretty much eat
what I want! Eat less, move more? Simple enough!

You are ready.

Week one begins and you are high on motivation. Nothing can
stop you because you are going to be lean! You can picture yourself at parties
in that dress that you know will suddenly fit even though you haven’t been able
to fit into it since you were 19. People will gawk in awe at your Olympia-eqsue
leanness because THIS IS THE DIET.

Yes. That is so going to happen.

You are elated and admittedly smug with the knowledge of your
impending awesomeness. You don’t even feel
like you are on a diet. You can absolutely go the distance. This is easy!

You go to the gym and look around at all of the soon-to-be
lesser-than-your-leanness people. “Just wait.” You think to yourself. “I’m
going to show you all how it’s done!”

Your lifts are still strong and you kill it in the gym. Take
that bodyfat! You feel energetic and
positive about EVERYTHING because you know how awesome you are going to look so
what else matters right? The only thing left is to wake up one morning shredded
af.

But after a week, that doesn’t happen.

After a week, you lose a pound.

A pound??? How the hell am I going to look like She-Ra by
summer if I am only losing a pound a
week?!

The scale must be broken so you check the batteries. But you
know deep down that you just changed them and they are fine. You really ‘only’
lost a pound.

This is frustrating because you think after such an epic
week of flawless dieting you should have lost at least 10 pounds. I mean…I ate
less for a whole week!! I could have died!

But no…a pound.

You quickly hatch and then un-hatch plans of desperation to
start adding an hour of cardio every day as well as cutting out ALL THE CARBS
FOREVER to accelerate your progression towards your ultimate amazingness.

But you know from past experience that a. carbs are not the issue and b. such plans always yield fast results that suddenly grind to a halt and stay there with out a single ab to show for your efforts.

No, you have to stick to the plan.

You spend the day on Instagram scoping out pro athletes and the
rippling abdominal muscles of your favourite chick bodybuilders. You hear the
land of Shredsville calling your name. Heck you can even hear their bloody
minstrels preparing ballads in honour of your legendary physique.

You suddenly remember your calling and you are ready for
another week of fat destruction.

It goes a lot like the week before. You still feel strong.
You still kill it in the gym. You have no real issues sticking to a couple
hundred calories below your maintenance.You don’t even know what you were worried about. You were BORN for
dieting.

You begin reliving your dreams of walking down the beach and
people confusing you for a Terminator.

You even take a few moments to flex your stuff in the
bathroom mirror in honour of your body-to-be. You look nothing like She-Ra. But
that’s ok…the week isn’t over yet.

But because seven days isn’t really a long
time when you get on the scale once more...

Down another pound. Just one
pound? You completely ignore the fact that 1+1 = 2. You have only lost one pound. It’s only one pound
because everything magically resets every time you step on the scale and all
you know is that last week you were 124 and this week you are only down to 123.

It becomes even worse when the following week you only lose
half a pound. You feel like Oliver Twist with your sad little bowl begging the
Gods of Lypolisis to be less sparing with their rations.

Then as if to rub it in your face…the week after your weight
stays the same.

You KNOW progress isn’t linear. But tell that to my
waistline!!! You wonder how many more times you can suffer through sore abs
without being able to see a thing when you lift your shirt each morning. It is all
starting to be rather depressing and you wonder if you are failing yet
again…until you remember that ‘duh’, you only dropped your calories once.

Ok ok. You call of the pity party and you spend a few
painstaking minutes with your hated adversary Mathematics and finally come up
with your new set of target calories. They are not as high as last time…but
you’ve got this.

You suddenly feel fresh with motivation and the dreams of
what your new calorie target will bring. The abs! The gleam of your shoulders
under the thick layer of Banana Boat SPF 15! Terminator! ‘Come back to us!’
they scream.

You have to answer their call…and so another week of dieting
begins.

You do not feel as
strong but it’s not enough to stop you from taking out all of your frustrations
on every lift you perform. You still feel pretty good despite having been at a deficit
for a month. You still have that Spartan devil within you that will only be at
peace when you desolate your workout and all in all just fuck shit up a bit in
the gym. Or at least look like you did.

Hunger levels are
tolerable and your will to fight is still stronger than the occasional grumble
of your stomach at 12AM. You are still riding the dragon to your destiny and
anticipate your magnificent entrance into Leandom isn’t too far off...

The weeks continue
on the same. 1 pound. Maybe 1.5. Sometimes no loss at all.

You have now lost 5.5
pounds…but you don’t look nearly as lean and you desired. And this means war.
Or another caloric drop.

This caloric drop is
very different to the last couple of drops. The first couple days were
perfectly manageable and you even appeared to lose a little water which is
always encouraging. However…this is the week where it finally happens. And when
I say ‘it’ I don’t mean turning into a Shredisaurous-Rex.

‘It’ meaning the deficit
finally hits you in the face.

This is the point of
dieting where hunger becomes a state of being. When anyone asks how you are,
the answer is usually ‘hungry LOL’ or ‘hungry *grumble*’

When trying to
identify how you are feeling…the only apparent emotion is hunger….because at
this point hunger is a gut-wrenching emotion that can bring you to tears in
seconds.

You may fall asleep
at night but your dreams of devouring towers of donuts usually wake you up an
hour later feeling bitter, deprived, hungry of course and hating your life for
its lack of donut-ness.

And then you have to
drop your calories even farther.

This is the point of
dieting where you suddenly understand the meaning of the term ‘food porn’. You
avoid Instragram and its lascivious posters who are obviously posting their
oreo cheesecake concoctions AT YOU. Assholes.

This is also the
point of the diet where being tired is the only other alternative to being hungry.
Unless you are hating something. There is always something to hate on a diet.

You are a starving
warrior crossing the wasteland towards progress. You will make it…you have
to…you tell yourself that you will soon stumble upon the oasis of Shredsville
and lavish in the fruits of your labour. However you are hoping you can last
that long. Strength is long gone as well as your cheeks…but your abs are still
being shy. You can just about see them through the chink in the curtain of your
belly fat…but it isn’t show time. You don’t even remember when last you had the
energy to flash your tickets to the gun show…you just want it to be over. And
you still hate that bitch and the shape of her perfectly perfect abs.

You are also reaching that point of depletion where formulating
sentences takes Herculesian effort.

Actually it is safe to say that answering questions in
general is as draining as high intensity interval training.

Not to mention this guy shows up a lot more often to parade
all over your diminished state.

Just to be clear, I don't support starvation diets. However you can eventually reach that point where even though you are ‘allowed’ to eat everything, not everything fits in your calories. And that's when the romance with this diet thing is over. You feel like a kid trapped in detention writing lines on the board about how awesome you are going to be except your chalk is a fucking baby carrot. No matter how many times you write it you are just going through the motions and you are not even sure if you believe this crap anymore. And you are sick of baby carrots.

Even with the flexible dieting approach there comes a
point where a deficit is still a deficit and your body doesn’t like it.
Hormonally your body kicks up a shitstorm that feels like you are constantly
experiencing PMS. You are sore and irritable. And hungry. Your body is basically telling
you that it doesn’t like you and what you are doing and it is going to fight
you until you listen. And if you don’t listen it just gets louder and louder.
From the inside life seems laborious and your only friends in the world are
your bed, the gym and your Tupperware. From the outside everyone is wondering
why the hell you’ve been staring at the clock clutching your empty Tupperware in a manner as though you’ve been slightly unhinged.

This is always how the last few weeks of a diet has felt for
me particularly on a show prep. The long grind towards the lower levels of
bodyfat that feels like you are a chairless paraplegic dragging yourself belly
down over miles of old rug while suffering a severe case of sunburn.

I talk about dieting being easy because the concept is simpler
than we let on. However eventually no matter how flexible your protocol you
will have to make some sort of sacrifices and put in a significant amount of effort
to get to the lower levels of bodyfat as well as breaking past plateaus.
And fuck you plateaus.Useless SOBs. I know
that plateaus are a sign that your body is efficient at regulating itself but
this isn’t the Hunger Games. Hello! My fridge is right there. I can eat if I am truly dying.Why can’t my body tell the difference and
stop trying to defend against starvation????

Sigh.

So if you are on a diet and you aren’t shitting rainbows and
buttercups despite all the colourful, fibrous foods you’re eating then you’re
not alone. However thanks to Stackingplates.com I have been introduced to research that supports throwing yourself a life-raft that makes things all better during a deficit.

What might that be?

Imagine for a moment that you are still caught in that proverbial caloric
wasteland knowing that you only have 300 more calories left for your entire
evening and you only just started to catch up on your Dexter...and you’re already
peckish.

Just when you begin to cave under the pressure of having to endure
such hardship imagine that in that moment a fist of knowledge bursts through
the roof Arch Angel style telling you that if you can hang in there just a few
days longer you will be blessed with the holiest of dietary holies:

The Refeed.

The science of the refeed styled protocol is here. Tune in next time for the Blab-Blog description. :)